At the end of March, AFHP hosted our partner agencies to kick off the beginning of the Chlamydia Performance improvement Project. AFHP was awarded a grant at the beginning of 2017 by the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) to improve the amount of people tested for Chlamydia in the state of Arizona. ADHS receives funding each year from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to do work with STD prevention, and a piece of that funding was awarded to AFHP for this project. As part of the Chlamydia grant, AFHP will be working with other Arizona agencies to improve chlamydia testing rates by identifying current barriers to screening and seeking solutions for each unique agency. The primary focus of the project is increasing screening rates for Chlamydia for young women 25 years of age and younger. Chlamydia is especially an issue for this population because it can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, which can cause future infertility.
During the meeting, attendees were educated about the clinical side of Chlamydia from Dr. Gautam Aggarwal, the Medical Director for Native Health. They were also asked to participate in a host of activities that would prepare them for the start of the grant project. Participants were tasked to come up with a list of challenges and opportunities for improvement and rank them by how high or low impact they are. They also completed a priority matrix and filled in a Test of Change diagram for their individual organizations that they will be using for the entirety of the grant project.
AFHP’s program team was pleased with the interaction and attentiveness of the group. We are looking forward to beginning this performance improvement project, and doing our part to help reduce the spread of Chlamydia.
